OLYMPICS, ALPINE SKIING. Short summary from post-race Press Conference by FIS Chief Race Director Ladies Alpine Skiing Atle Skaardal, former World Cup racer, 3 time medalist at the FIS World Ski Championships and two time winner of World Cup downhill races in Whistler:

"The course was in excellent condition today and well prepared by the VANOC team. However this is both a beautiful, and a very challenging and technical course with a long running time (1:45min) for a ladies' downhill. It may be difficult but it is not dangerous. Because of the extreme weather changes with the wet snow freezing solidly overnight, the course conditions today were very different than what we had in training. In a way Mother Nature made it very hard and fast, we could even call it ‘nature-injected'. With the very bad weather in the past several days, it was not possible to arrange more than one valid training. For tomorrow's super combined, we will lower to the reserve DH start in order to reduce the running time and ensure that the racers are not as tired at the end. Also the final jump will be reshaped to make it lower considering that there will be slalom skiers at the start, in addition to catering to the entire range of racers' skills at the start at Olympic Winter Games."

FISalpine.com
Thursday 18 February 2010